I just got spam from a phisher allegedly from tax-returns@irs.gov saying I have a $571.94 tax refund that needs to be claimed in 12 days.

The URL had me fooled for a second -- it looks like a link to govbenefits.gov with a longidentifier. It turns out that the badguys are using a poorly secured redirect page (externalLink.jhtml) on govbenefits.gov to send people to porterfam.org. Of course the resulting page asks for SSN, credit card number, etc -- all the things needed for identity fraud.

http://www.govbenefits.gov/govbenefits/externalLink.jhtml?url=h%74t%70:%2F%2F%77%77%77%2Eporterfam%2E%6F%72%67%2F2+005%2F%3F_cmd=/cgibin/2005/trefund/id=96596,00(copy and paste this link in your browser address bar)

12 days left to apply for your refund. You may not receive your refund as quickly as you expected. A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example, a name and Social Security number listed on the tax return may not match the IRS records. You may have failed to electronically sign the return or applied after the deadline.

This email has been sent by the Internal Revenue Service, a bureau of the Department of the Treasury.

I installed the following software on the new HP laptop -- they areall from the CD that went home with you.

OpenOffice V2.0 -- This is a complete, free replacement for Microsoft Office tools like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It will let you open documents that people may send you that those tools.

GAIM -- free alternative to AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, etc's own version of IM or Chat programs. You still need free accounts on those services (and you already have them for Google, Yahoo and AOL), but you don't need to have 3 different programs running to chat with people on each of those IM servers. GAIM connects for your to each of them.

FireFox -- free alternative to using Microsoft Internet Explorer (also known as MSIE, the blue E that I removed from at least Dad's desktop). MSIE has a history of being plagued by virus, spyware, etc. Firefox is not completely immune, but much less of a risk. You may hear people refer to Mozilla browser, Firefox is a version of that.

There are other free programs on the CD -- it is called TheOpenCD(http://www.theopencd.org) and you can pass it on or give copies toyour friends -- to look at the other stuff on there to to see if thereis anything interesting to you on it. You can install them on theoffice PCs or the desktop PC at home.

I also setup a number of free accounts for both of you.

Email -- Instead of using Microsoft Outlook and getting your mail from Roadrunner or Frontier (which ever you end up choosing for email), just get your email from google's free GMAIL service. Use any computer and go to http://www.gmail.com/ and log to do your email. (Account info below)

IM -- Dad and I got accounts for IM Chat accounts on AOL (sometimes you see it referred to as AIM), Google Talk and Yahoo!. (account info below) The GAIM program is all setup for each of those account. Just go to the menu Tool s then Account and click 'Online' for your accounts. It already has the password information set there. This will let you chat with my kids who use AOL, Lori that uses Yahoo! and me who actually has accounts on all of them.

Photos -- You already had an account on Flickr (now part of Yahoo!,http://www.flickr.com). You used your old AOL.COM address to create an account. and there is a way to change the email address to match your Yahoo! account. Dad and I also installed FlickrUploadr and there should be a link of the desktop. Double click on it to start it and then use the file explorer to drag and drop photos from your hard drive (or CD or Camera) to FlickrUploadr. Then press the Upload button and the photos will be copied to http://www.flickr.com/ where people can see them.